


World of Ghosts

by Kelette



Series: Tales of the Time Witch [3]
Category: Tales of Phantasia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 23:57:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14658939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelette/pseuds/Kelette
Summary: Arche Klein has dedicated the majority of her life to maintaining the timelines. When something unexpected happens right before the end of the Heroes of Time's journey, Arche is tasked with a final job to ensure that the worlds are saved.





	World of Ghosts

Time magic rippled through the air, traveling throughout the world. Arche Kleine opened her eyes, feeling the power of a magic user she hadn’t felt in two hundred (well, technically fifty) years.

“Dhaos,” she announced.

“That poor heart. He’s closed himself off to others.” 

Arche turned towards the soft voice, keeping her arms curled around her knees. The spirit of the Great Tree, Martel, leaned over her. 

“Could he be stopped if his heart was healed?” Arche asked out of curiosity. “Could you heal his heart?”

Martel straightened. Her eyes gazed off into the distance. Arche supposed she was looking at the source of the time ripples. “I am just the guardian of the Yggdrasil Tree. I cannot heal hearts.”

“Mint could do it,” Arche said thoughtfully, lowering her chin back behind her knees again.

“Mint is dead,” Martel reminded the half-elf softly.

“She’ll be here soon.” Arche closed her eyes and tugged her knees closer.

Martel sighed, although the tree spirit was supposed to be beyond exasperation. “If I could heal hearts, I would heal yours.”

Arche didn’t respond.

**

Something was wrong. Arche could feel the ripples of Dhaos’ energy after his time travel spell, but the mana signature was blurry. Dhaos was hurt.

Of course, he had just barely escaped to the future after enduring a battle with a group of heroes, but was he supposed to be this injured?

Arche hopped on her broom before she realized what she was doing and flew towards the energy. As injured as he was, Arche wasn’t certain that he could even survive past the next couple of days.

Dhaos had crash landed in the forest. He rested in the center of a crater that leaked traces of his magic. Arche angled her broom so that one foot rested just above the head while her hand could still grip the handle for support. Standing upright like that she lowered herself in front of the menace that she and her friends worked so hard to defeat.

Floating there, she examined his mana.

“You’re dying,” Arche announced, shocked.

Dhaos lifted his head. “Are you here to finish me off, half-elf?”

Arche moved closer to the Demon King, overcoming her concerns about his potential threat. “But that’s impossible. You can’t be dying, you’re supposed to…” Dhaos was supposed to live, to wreak havoc in this future world, forcing the inhabitants to travel to the past and collect the only group of heroes known to stand a chance against the Demon King.

Dhaos dropped his head back down. 

Arche sighed. She half-wished she could just finish him off right there, but if she did that, the Heroes of Time would never be summoned to this future. 

“I didn’t spend the last two hundred years stabilizing the timelines for your death here to ruin it,” Arche grumbled as she landed in the crater and walked up to Dhaos. Her actions stemmed from a more selfish reason as well. If Dhaos died here, Arche would never get to see the ghosts she had been waiting for.

“What are you talking about? You and your friends won. I will die here, and any hope for my planet will die with me.” Dhaos’ voice had faded to a whisper. His mana was seeping out of him at an alarming rate.

“Hold on, Dhaos, wait!” Arche tried her best to summon light magic to her hands. Unlike certain individuals, (namely, Mint Adenade), Arche had not been blessed with a healing gift. Unlike elemental magic, healing magic worked best when drawing from one’s own magical resources. 

The light was shaky. By the time Arche placed her hands against Dhaos chest, a certain light had left him. His body shifted from her pressure stiffly. Arche snatched away her hands as if she had tried touching a fire.

Dhaos was dead.

Arche Kleine, hero of time, had fought in wars to achieve this end. But this was not how it was supposed to end.

“Levitate,” Arche called out, lifting Dhaos with magic and getting back on her broom. She didn’t understand what was happening. Martel was the only person she knew who might have some answers.

**

The tree spirit Martel stared at the corpse. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Arche asked.

“Maintain the timelines,” Martel responded. As if it were that simple.

**

Soon, as Arche predicted, Mint arrived. Cless, Chester, Klarth, and the past version of Arche arrived with her. 

Arche let her curiosity get the better of her. She flew towards Miguel where the group of heroes was staying. Her broom lowered to a rooftop and she crouched, crawling across to get a view of the heroes.

A shudder ran through her as she caught sight of them.

Ghosts, she reminded herself. These people were ghosts. After all, Klarth was dead.

Mint was dead.

Cless was dead.

Chester was dead.

Arche was herself, and the people she spied on were just ghosts from the past, appearing in the present to haunt her. 

The heroes didn’t realize they were ghosts, although the evidence was easy to find. They spoke to the governor in the town square. All they had to do was head North to visit the cemetery, where three of their bodies were buried. (Klarth was buried elsewhere). They had elaborate graves --fitting for the people who rebuilt the town.

Ghosts.

Arche sighed as she watched them. She ached to join them, to fly down and kick her past self out of the group and steal her place. Instead she watched as Chester hung to the side, still weak from his battle with Dhaos and less experienced than the rest. Past-Arche pointedly ignored him and Mint kept twitching her fingers in Chester’s direction, as if she wanted to work more healing magic on him. Klarth led discussions with the governor while Cless looked around the town with wonder in his eyes.

**

Klarth had always been older than Arche, so his aging and ultimate death didn’t impact her as badly. It was different with the other three.

Physically, Arche was the same age when she reunited with them, but that didn’t last long. Chester, Cless, and Mint slowly but surely aged beyond her. Their faces developed wrinkles and their hair turned gray. Arche stayed untouched by time. Eventually the other villagers in Miguel began teasing Chester about how he managed to keep such a young looking lady.

Chester was the first to die.

Perhaps he never fully recovered from his fight with Dhaos. His memory died before he did, going slowly and painfully. Mint explained it had been the head trauma he suffered. Chester remembered Arche the longest --perhaps because her looks were unchanged. So she took care of him until finally Chester couldn’t even remember her anymore, until finally Chester was gone.

Cless was next, his body worn down from fighting so many battles and his heart worn down from the slow loss of his best friend.

Mint lived on for awhile after that, but even she died sooner than Arche would have expected. All of the acts of healing she had performed in her life, drawn from her own life force, depleted her lifespan more than Arche had realized. Arche lived with Mint and assisted her as things became more and more difficult.

“You don’t have to stay and help me all the time,” Mint said one day. “I know this is hard for you.”

Arche plastered a smile on her face. “Don’t be silly, Mint! After everything we’ve been through together, I couldn’t leave you now!” It wasn’t as if Arche didn’t have the time. Too soon Mint would be dead as well, and Arche would have nothing but time.

After Mint died, Arche fled her home in Miguel and escaped to the Yggdrasil Tree.

**

The Heroes of Time had left Miguel to begin the final steps to defeat Dhaos. Arche perched at the top of the Yggdrasil Tree to watch them leave. When she could no longer make out their dots in the distance she floated back down to Martel. 

Levitating was not her preferred form of flying, but it was Dhaos’, and in order to maintain the timelines she had to keep his spirit alive long enough for the Heroes of Time to kill him.

“Are you ready?” Martel asked, spinning webs of mana around Dhaos’ corpse. Arche grimaced at the sight. The body would be preserved this way and prepared to become the seed of a new mana tree.

“What’s even the point of all of this?” Arche asked, obediently holding up her hands and beginning to cast the spell. “Why did any of this have to happen?”

Martel shrugged. “We aren’t gods, we must maintain the timelines.”

“So I don’t get to choose my own fate? I don’t get free will?” Arche asked.

Martel raised her head, staring at Arche with eyes that probably couldn’t see anything. Arche had spent years studying the spirits with Klarth and as far as she could tell they sensed everything with mana. The eyes were just for show.

**

Klarth was the first to notice something was wrong. Time travel had never been his area of expertise --one needed elven blood in order to use time magic. After his adventures he had spontaneously developed an interest in the subject and then a deep worry.

“It doesn’t add up,” Klarth said. “It doesn’t make sense.” He sat on the floor of his study, in the only spot that wasn’t covered with paper. In order to join him, Arche had to sit on her broom. 

She tipped forward, rotating the broom in order to get a better view of the floor. Klarth had used multiple colors, underlining words and circling large concepts. Arche had certainly become more of a scholar since their journey had ended, but in the end she had to agree with Klarth. “None of this makes sense,” she said, meaning something entirely different than Klarth.

Klarth noticed. He looked up to scowl at the half-elf. “There’s something wrong with the timelines,” Klarth explained. He pressed his finger against a paper, smudging the ink that spelled ‘Start.’ “This is where it begins in Cress’ timeline. Edward D. Morrison and his band of heroes battle Dhaos to stop the war and Dhaos escapes to the future, where Cress and Mint’s ancestors waited to seal Dhaos. Then Dhaos is freed and Cress and Mint come here to find us.”

“Right,” Arche said. 

“Then Edward D. Morrison dies and we force Dhaos to escape to the far future. This means that Morrison can never chase Dhaos to the future and Cress’s ancestors can’t seal him and he can’t be unsealed and Cress will never travel to meet us.” Klarth gasped for breath.

“But that already happened, right?” Arche asked. “So it doesn’t matter that it no longer can?”

“No! It still matters! Because if this is true then it means… it means…” Klarth stopped to take a deep breath. “It means, after I die, and after you finally live to see Cress, Mint, and Chester’s present, they won’t even recognize you.”

Arche stiffened. “What?”

“Because these kids from our future will never have had a reason to travel to the past. But that can’t be right! Martel promised that we would be able to meet each other again. So that means it must be false.”

Arche rubbed her head. “Okay… I don’t get it.”

“It means!” Klarth began again, a little manically. Arche was a bit worried about him. “That both timelines must be true at the same time! If that’s true, then Dhaos didn’t die when we all fought him, in Cress’ present, he just escaped to the far future. And when we fought Dhaos in this timeline, he only jumped a few years ahead.”

Dread began to fill Arche’s stomach. “So what you’re saying is that Dhaos is going to reappear sometime soon?”

Klarth nodded. “Very soon. We need to be ready to stop him. We need Morrison to cast Indignation and force him to jump even further ahead, so that Cress’s ancestors can seal him away.”

“But Morrison is dead!” Arche objected.

Klarth grinned. “I’ve thought about that! What we need is a spirit medium to channel Morrison… and this spirit medium will also have to be strong enough to cast Indignation. Know of anyone that fits that description?”

Arche groaned. She was probably the only spirit medium that matched that description. “Didn’t Morrison have allies to help him?”

Klarth nodded. “I’m going to hunt them down and form the party. You should go to Martel and ensure that everything else adds up. We need to hurry! I don’t want to think about what would happen if the timelines weren’t maintained.”

**

They hurried, and Arche became Edward D. Morrison, the mage of the original party to fight Dhaos. 

“What the heck is that?” Dhaos’ words echoed through her ears as Morrison’s spirit drew on Arche’s power to cast “Indignation!”

Dhaos escaped to the future, and Klarth let the issue of the alien mage go, instead focusing on his life with Mildred and his children. Arche didn’t. Klarch passed away. Arche lived on. 

She was there when Dhaos reappeared, and Mint and Cless’ ancestors sealed Dhaos away. She was there when Dhaos slowly influenced Mars, convincing the human to raise Cless and Chester’s hometown to the ground. She made sure everything happened as it was supposed to happen, all for the moment when Cless, Mint, and Chester returned from their time traveling journey and Arche could reunite with them all at once.

Arche thought it might have been appropriate that the last of the timeline she had to fix in place called for her to become Dhaos, the Demon King himself. She didn’t feel entirely like a hero anymore, more like an arbiter of fate. It was one thing to ensure the timelines remained stable for Dhaos’ ultimate defeat, another to maintain the timelines by becoming Dhaos himself.

“I have one concern,” Arche admitted to Martel when she visited to check on the progress for the seed.

“You’re doing an excellent job playing the role of the Demon King,” Martel reassured her.

“Thanks, but that wasn’t my concern. In the final battle, Cless lands a finishing blow,” Arche said slowly. “In order to make sure the timeline remains untouched, I’m going to have to die.”

“Does it bother you that much?” Martel asked.

Arche hesitated. She missed Klarth, Cless, Mint, Chester. She often threatened to kill herself, unable to imagine a world without them. Yet, life went on. Arche wasn’t nearly as suicidal as she thought she should be.

“Then why don’t you jump ahead?” Martel suggested.

“Jump where?”

“To the future. You have the ability to travel through time all by yourself now. Travel to a time after the final battle, make a new life for yourself, and when you feel ready return to this moment.”

Arche swallowed. So her role had been a death sentence all along. “If I do that, then the greatest risk to the timelines would be my own death.”

Martel’s smile always felt like a cool breeze. “I think you’ll find that very few people will be capable of threatening your wellbeing.”

Arche held out her hands out in front of her. She could live a bit more and then sacrifice her life when she felt ready. It was a cheat. A large grin spread across her face. Dying to maintain the timelines wasn’t such a sacrifice when she could live almost as long as she wanted beforehand, but then, Arche wasn’t an entirely selfless person. A sacrifice like that didn’t suit her anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was supposed to be a prequel work to "A Timely Encounter" (my short where Arche travels back in time and meets Raine Sage) but thematically the two didn't fit together that well XD


End file.
